Thursday, January 08, 2009

St. Mark's Square, Venice. I like this drawing a lot. It was done very quickly and I can still remember how I added the birds last in a few strokes!

I went to Venice with a small group of American classmates on a summer programme in 2001. It was such an unique 'back to college' experience for me. We stayed at a local camp site outside Venice and the journey to the city took us almost one hour by local bus. I was the only 'matured' Asian student then but I wanted to follow my younger friends so we stayed at this simple, far away camp site for less than US$10 per head and ate pizzas or hot dogs with water. I must be 20 years older than my American classmates but I probably did not look my age then to the Americans. When I told them my elder son was already 17, they all fell off their chairs....

favourite art quotes

"I dream a lot. I do more painting when I'm not painting. It's in the subconscious." Andrew Wyeth

"I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies." Le Corbusier

"If people knew how hard I have had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all." Michelangelo

"From the time I was six, I was in the habit of sketching things I saw around me, and around the age of fifty, I began to work in earnest, producing numerous designs. It was not until after my seventieth year, however, that I produced anything of significance. At the age of seventy-three, I began to grasp the underlying structure of birds and animals, insects and fish, and the way trees and plants grow. Thus, if I keep up my efforts, I will have an even better understanding when I am eighty, and by ninety will have penetrated to the heart of things. At one hundred, I may reach a level of divine understanding, and if I live a decade beyond that, everything I paint-every dot and line-will be alive. I ask the god of longevity to grant me a life long enough to prove this true." Hokusai, postscript to One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji [translated by Carol Morland]

"I'm glad I haven't found my style yet. I'd be bored to death." Degas

"The artist is primarily a visual person. I have always believed that there is no essential difference between the basic visual relationships that concern the fine artist, the graphic artist, the industrial designer, and the architect. The difference is in the degree of complexity of visual organization demanded by each situation. Beyond that, there are the materials and techniques of each area. I am convinced that there is a visual discipline suitable for all of these areas. It is based on the exciting concept that there can be order and structure to the organization of visual expression." Rowena Reed Kostellow

"I've always rated doodles as a method to capture or generate solutions to a creative problem. I also doodle in meetings and although refused to be intimidated into giving up, I always felt very slightly guilty. No one ever asked me to actually stop. I suspect they were caught between the belief that I wasn't paying attention and the desire to enjoy the final results. Anyway its good that some scientist thinks it helps retain information. Why do scientists tot up the numbers and announce the result like they've discovered something new? . . . Most creatives I know are aware of the value of doodling and many have given thought to the mechanics and psychology behind it. None, that I know anyway, felt the need to publish an academic paper though." Alan Scott